Karen Diver and Barack Obama
Fond Du Lac Chairwoman Karen Diver seated next to President Barack Obama at the 2nd White House Tribal Nations Conference in December. You can read about it in this months’s Fond Du Lac Band Tribal newspaper.
This story also made the DNT but somehow it only rated a “Faces and Names” mention in the DNT, below Shania Twain, Jermaine Jackson and Stephen Baldwin in the online version that I called up today. Who knows? Maybe they did another story somewhere but I missed it.
Wow, cool photo and great article! Karen Diver is doing such great things.
Like not paying the contractually obligated portion of casino revenues to the city?
There we go dbb, I was wondering if that would come up. I have not completely made up my mind on this one because I have mixed interests. In the end I hope that the band decides to maintain its part of the agreement and keep paying the city.
As far as I know, the Fond du Lac Band and the Lake Superior Chippewa people have abided by every single treaty or agreement they have ever entered into with the people of Minnesota and the United States Government in the past 170 or so years. Unfortunately (or maybe I should say “tragically”) you can’t say the same thing for the government. In fact, just the opposite is true. Any talk of agreements between Native Americans and state or national governments must be discussed in that context.
dbb: actually, yes.
I’ve got no skin in the game one way or the other. I just find it curious that they stop making payments on an agreement that is around 20 years old, and claim it was never valid to begin with. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in court, and how the community deals with the aftermath.